Howard A. Snyder, The Community of the King: Revised Edition. InterVarsity Press, 2004.
Referenced in: Ecclesiologies
LifeandLeadership.com Summary
Theology of Mission and Ministry.
Summary: The Community of the King is an excellent example of a contextualized ecclesiology, exploring God’s intent for the church into a specific cultural setting, in our case Western society generally and North America particularly.
This is one of two or three “must” consults on ecclesiology for church renewalists. When one thinks of Howard Snyder, words such as incisive, probing, and refreshing come to mind. Anything he writes is worth reading. In my opinion, this is his best work. It is perhaps one of the most understandable volumes available on the doctrine of the church. There are many good works on ecclesiology, most of them either heavily technical or expressed in advanced theological terms. These are good and useful. Few, however, are able to convey this rich doctrine in a way that aims so clearly at the church’s purpose in the world as Snyder’s Community of the King. The special contribution Snyder makes to ecclesiology is in explaining the relationship between the church and the kingdom.
Snyder stresses the New Testament emphasis on “the church as part of God’s dramatic, historic action in Jesus Christ of reconciling all things to himself, ‘things in heaven and on earth.’” (Eph 1:10). He continues, “The Bible calls this reconciling work the kingdom of God. This book probes the relationship between the church and the kingdom.” The essence of this relationship is that the church is the primary agent by which God’s kingdom breaks in, and as such, it is inseparable from God’s cosmic purpose to sum up all things in Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:10). As “the community of God’s people,” the church is called to “serve God and live together in true Christian community as a witness to the character and virtues of God’s reign, as the agent of God’s mission on earth.” That mission is “nothing other than bringing all things and, supremely, all people on earth, under the dominion and headship of Jesus Christ.” All other activities of the church must find their justification in this light. Thus,
to speak of evangelism, prophetic witness or any other dimension of the church without relating these to the church’s kingdom mission is to lose the biblical perspective and develop a stunted vision of the church’s calling. Biblically, neither evangelism nor social action, nor the church’s worship life, nor any other aspect of the church’s being makes full sense divorced from the fact of the Christian community as the visible, flesh-and-blood expression of the kingdom of God. (pp. 10-13)
He expresses it well in Chapter 5, “The Church in God’s Plan.”
The church is more than God’s agent of evangelism or social change; it is, in submission to Christ, the agent of God’s entire cosmic purpose. The kingdom of God is coming, and to the extent that this coming of the kingdom occurs in history before the return of Christ, God’s plan is to be accomplished through the church. (71)
The church finds its identity in this unified, complementary rhythm of being a people and a community, both within a city or culture and within the larger global context. People and community together constitute what the New Testament means by ekklesia, the called-out and called-together church of God. This is perhaps the closest we can come to a biblical definition of the church: it is the community of God’s people. The two key elements here are the church as a people, a new race or humanity, and the church as a community or fellowship—the koinonia of the Holy Spirit. (74)
Alongside this is the idea of the church as the steward of God’s grace, facilitating the exercise of the God-given gifts of its members. Thus our structures and strategies should allow God’s reign to be reflected through the members’ free exercise of their gifts. This is addressed more fully in another of Snyder’s works Radical Renewal.
Toward what should the church exercise her gifts? Snyder approaches this through the teaching of Ephesians 2:8-10, which teaches we are saved by God in order to do good works, not just any good works, but those which “God prepared in advance,” those that fit into the plan that God is bringing into realization. He says:
It is already in the mind and plan of God for certain things that are part of God’s overall plan to be done by the church as good works. Thus redeemed men and women share in the realization of God’s cosmic design. What God has set about to do since the creation of the world—“to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Eph 1:10)—is in part to be accomplished through the good works of the saved.
The Bible does not give us a neat catalog of kingdom tasks. It is not difficult, however, to identify biblical criteria for determining which works are part of God’s plan and which fight it. A fivefold test can be applied: Christians are accomplishing God’s foreordained design whenever their works (1) spring from Christian love, (2) are based on obedience to the gospel and the stewardship of spiritual gifts, (3) are done in the name of Jesus, (4) work toward reconciliation, healing and beauty in the world, in whatever area, and (5) glorify the Father. Wherever Christians are working in Jesus’ name for reconciliation and liberation in the world, working to mend the brokenness of the world and to heal the sickness caused by the Fall, and where such activity springs from Christian love and a true sense of Christian vocation, there God is at work and his kingdom is evident. (87-88)
Other important concepts are Snyder’s contrasts between church as “institution” vs. the “kingdom of God.” This is especially important as we experience the end of modernity and the churched-culture church, and examine our paradigms for their effectiveness in the new era. He also provides an excellent survey of models of the church, historical and contemporary, and evaluates how they stack up against kingdom benchmarks. Another chapter provides an excellent comparison between church growth and kingdom growth.
Most who read Snyder come away both challenged and inspired. One may not agree with all of his proposals (e.g. ecumenism, city-wide churches), but any church leader considering congregational revitalization could improve their bearings with this text. Those who appreciate this volume may also consult other Snyder works such as Radical Renewal (2005), Decoding the Church (2002), Kingdom, Church, and World (2001), and Models of the Kingdom (2001).
From the Publisher
A classic revisited—revised and expanded. For over twenty-five years, Howard Snyder’s Community of the King has set the standard for a penetrating look at the relationship between the kingdom of God and the earthly church. Biblically and practically Snyder helps us think through such crucial questions as
- What is the kingdom of God?
- What role does it play in history?
- What does it mean for the church to be an agent of the kingdom?
Once we grasp the nature of the kingdom, Snyder helps us explore its implications for the church as we experience it in daily life. The church, he argues, is part of God’s dramatic plan to reconcile all things to himself. The church that is true to its calling will emphasize the God-given gifts of all its members and develop structures and strategies that reflect God’s reign in the world.
In addition to a completely new chapter on developments in Christian thinking on the church since its first publication, this new edition of Community of the King contains a fully updated bibliography and is revised throughout.
Here is a classic book for all concerned with church life and growth.
About the Author
Howard A. Snyder serves as distinguished professor and chair of Wesley Studies at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Previously he was professor of history and theology of mission in the E. Stanley Jones School of World Mission and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky from 1996 to 2006. He has also taught at United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, and pastored in Chicago and Detroit.
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